How Beetles Saved my Life

I'm living in the wild Wild West. Sometimes my friends (never my husband) shake their heads at my insect-hunting adventures and tell me that I take too many risks. They think I shouldn't crawl through fences along highway 77 to collect Dynastes - but it's dark when they fly, who's going to catch me?


I've picked beetles from the border fence in Lochiel, but I'd never follow a bug into Mexico - I collect strictly Arizona beetles right now.
When we bump along Harshaw Road, nervous border patrol agents sometimes stop us with their weapons half drawn, but they are there to protect us, aren't they?
Sometimes I get carried away racing after some elusive bug, but so far snakes have always stopped me with a warning rattle before I got too close.
I've bought a little old truck now, and it proved very useful last weekend in Copper Canyon when we had to use a lot of momentum to cross some rather deep water. Standing water that is, no danger of being swept away.
In the mountains, I keep the cooler with some food in my truck where I sleep, but it also contains my collected living insects, and I cannot very well hang those from a tree for the bears to find.
Close to Amado, a dozen or more young Mexican men once mistook my flashlight for a signal from their coyote and came running to catch their ride, but they realized right away that my car was much too small and trotted off again.
Last year I rolled off the high bank into the water of the San Pedro River, but it was nice and clean and I managed to hold my camera bag above the water.
So, nothing to worry about.

But on Thursday July 28 in Rio Rico, some dung beetles actually saved my life
I took part in the annual SASI meeting in Rio Rico as a vendor, selling my nature-related art work. Of course, I used any free minute to go collecting in that great area.


On Thursday afternoon, I headed east on Ruby Road and parked where it crosses the dry Santa Cruz River. The sun was shining from a clear blue sky. As I walked along the right bank a cowboy was driving a heard of cattle towards a tank on the other side. Hoping for dung beetles as well as inspirations for great paintings, I called whether I could come over to his side. He said sure, but to cross a little further upstream to avoid some patches of quicksand. So I kept walking.
Soon I was distracted by some horse manure that was quite alife with dung beetles. Not the shiny green, horned Phanaeus I was hoping for, but tiny Onthophagus hopfneri and veltinus and horned males of Copris lecontei.



Several pairs of Canthon imitator were using their big flat heads to cut their private share from the dung pile. They formed neat spheres about half the size of a golf ball and started tumbling them away in very straight lines at amazing speed.








The male was standing on his forelegs using his long hindlegs to propel and control the rolling dung ball. The female was riding on top, or at least trying to, she sometimes was tumbled to the side or even under the ball, but she never fell off. In Greece, I'd seen Scarab males actually fight over their dung balls, but here in the land of plenty that didn't happen. Challenges appeared only in the form of flies but the beetles ignored them.



One little green Canthon indigaceus was valiantly rolling a ball all by himself and even started to bury it. This may have been just for his own food storage.


















More often a pair will dig a chamber together, reshape and prepare the ball as brood-provision. They then mate underground and the female lays her eggs into the dung ball. In some species the parents stay and guard the larvae and feed them early on. This is probably the time when symbiotic cellulose-digesting bacteria are transferred from parent to larva. Seeing how many different species were interested in that pile of horse manure made me understand the advantage of removing a share from competition and predation.



The activity of the beetles was so interesting, that instead of crossing the river I followed the tumblers around for a while. Eventually I got on my knees to get better pictures. Suddenly I heard a rustling and rumbling that quickly came closer. When I looked up, I saw first a tongue and then a wall of muddy water and debris rolling down the Santa Cruz River.


The waterfront passed me about as fast as a person could run (if he didn't get stuck in quicksand that is). Within minutes, the riverbed was filled with churning water.

I waved at the cowboy. Maybe next time?

Of course, in the very wide and flat riverbed at Ruby Road the water would probably not have dragged me away if I had just been crossing. So the beetles really only saved me from getting muddy and smelly.

Even though there was not a cloud in the sky as far as I could see, the river rose about seven feet during the next few hours (news report. I didn't wait to find out). Flood damage was considerable on the US side because there had been no warning from Mexico where the rain was actually falling. I had definitely learned how suddenly flash floods can literally come out of the blue.

In Old Egypt the tumbling Scarab was the symbol of the sun and everlasting live...

When they are not busy resurrecting old pharaohs or saving the lives and boots of entomologists, the beetles are very important for the processing of dung.

In 2002, when we moved to our patch of desert northwest of the Tucson Mountains, there were no cattle close by. Later our neighbor introduced a herd of longhorns to State Trust Land that hadn't been grazed in decades, and at first clumps of hard dry dung were laying around like pieces of wood and accumulating.
















Finally after nearly two years, small Aphodines and two introduced larger species, Euoniticellus intermedius and Digitonthophagus gazella, appeared and began to break down fresh dung. But the old dry piles are still waiting to be slowly chewed up by termites.

Diplotaxis pumila in Madera Canyon. Another Scarab Mystery

Friday, July 30st. Now the monsoon is getting serious. As I'm driving north on I 19 from Rio Rico towards Tucson, heavy clouds and walls of rain are obscuring the Santa Rita Mountains. Still, it's not yet pouring in Madera Canyon, so I decide to stop for a while. On Madera Canyon Road sand and rocks covering the pavement indicate where the washes have been running the night before.

Harsh Arizona sunshine usually tends to reduce the world to a play of contrasting light and shadows. So I appreciate the way the diffused light brings out the true colors of lush vegetation, reddish soil, white rocks and the occasional insect.

While Desert Broom grows in disturbed areas along the road, knee-high Velvetpod Mimosa (Mimosa dysocarpa) dominates most of the Mesquite grassland of the lower canyon.


Usually the pink flower-stands are disappointingly empty of insects, seeming to leave most of the pollination to the wind. On this rainy afternoon, a green Fig Beetle Cotinus mirabilis is buried deeply in the pink cloud.













Numerous pairs of Stenaspis solitaria are mating - they are all over the Mimosas, Desert Broom, and the Mesquite trees, their larval host plants.



Another little Cerambycid is mating on grass. It's such a narrow-built, small beetle that the bunch grass may well be it's host plant.

Just before the next cloud burst forces me back into my van, I discover many brown little Scarabs on the green parts of the Mimosas. It's Diplotaxis pumila, about 5 mm long and dark brown. Bill Warner tells me later that they are probably not uncommon (in fact, there must have been hundreds within the area around the pay-station of the canyon) but they are rare in collections. If they only come out in weather like last Friday, I know why!

They were feeding on the mimosa leaves, some were mating, and some were producing little yellow spheres - eggs? - excretion of excess fluid? I wished I had paid more attention, because little is known about their life cycle. Scarabs don't usually lay eggs in the open on top of vegetation. But if these guys always do it before thunderstorms, the eggs would be washed down soon and reliably to their destination, the soil and roots under the bushes. Thus, the females could avoid climbing down to the ground where they might drown or be attacked by ants. It seems like an advantageous strategy, but nobody seems to know.Diplotaxis pumila Fall 1909

Beetle Parties

Every year Fred and Carol Skillman host their famous annual 'Beetle Bash' at Cochise Stronghold when the monsoon hits (or should hit) Cochise County. The party was delicious, interesting, inspiring, educational, and lots of fun. Thank you so much, Fred and Carol!



The following day, July 11, Eric Eaton and I headed for the Chiricahua Mountains. There was some indication that it had been raining there but the ground was rather dry.
Still, at at a lush creek crossing among ash and oak trees beautiful metallic green-blue Euphoria fulgida holochloris were buzzing around, looking very much like low-flying Carpenter bees.


We set up black lights at Onion Saddle, elevation 7600 ft, in an area with tall Alligator Junipers, Silverleaf Oaks and some Ponderosa Pines. Bill Warner and Aaron Smith stopped by and made us very envious with a beautiful specimen of the rare Carabus forreri. Collectors from as far away as Europe come searching for this beetle endemic to the Chiricahuas and the Huachucas of Arizona.




The sun had set but it was still too bright for the black light to attract anything when the humming and buzzing began. Big dark Scarabs that I later identified as the Dynastinae Coscinocephalus cribrifrons were zooming in on our location. They weren't headed for the black light. They ignored it and landed on a tree near by. More and more beetles appeared as it got darker. I soon found two more trees within a fifty meter radius where more of them were congregating. There must have been close to a hundred beetles per tree, running up and down the trunk, their elytra partly open, ready to take flight again and buzz around some more. The noise of all those feet on the bark sounded first like raindrops and then like a little waterfall.





Clumps of seven or eight beetles clinging together kept falling to the ground still madly scrambling after each other. It became clear that this was similar to a lekking situation where many females and even more pursuing males were coming together to mate. I have no clue how the first arrivals pick a particular tree to be their dancing ground - to me the three chosen trees had nothing to distinguish them from their neighbors. Two of them were junipers, the third one some kind of spruce. At the height of the party the trees were probably surrounded by a thick cloud of pheromones, attracting more and more beetles.



Interestingly, there were also numerous sarcophagid flies attending the dance. Nearly every beetle had a following that approached as soon as the beetle was busy with other beetles or momentarily incapacitated. Even though the flies weren't Tachnidae who are well-known Scarab brood-parasites, I think they were specifically targeting this pheromone-loaded situation, probably to attach eggs to the female beetles that would be transferred to the beetle brood as parasites. My theory is supported by the observation that the flies were all of just one species, their incredible persistence in following the beetles around, and that there were so many of them on the mating trees but none at the black light that had also attracted scarabs (of different species) by then.

The whole mad spectacle ended about an hour after sunset. Sinking temperatures may have curtailed the high activity level at that time.


Our patience at the black light was rewarded by a few more interesting beetle species and a three beautiful huge Oculea Silk Moths.
This chapter of my blog also appeared in  "Scarabs Newsletter # 57"  

Our Place at Night

In Arizona, the Monsoon season has begun. Temperatures have been hovering above the 100 mark for days and finally the humidity is also rising. Today, clouds are covering most of the sky. Although it hasn't actually rained yet, the fauna in our back yard is waking up from the stasis induced by the dry heat of June. But since it is still so hot during the day, one has to get a flash light and walk the night to see the animals.


At sunset, several species of bats flutter and zigzag like butterflies. Lesser Nighthawks Chordeiles acutipennis begin sailing across the sky.




The Nighthawk has spent the day immobile and nearly invisible, huddled down on a Palo Verde branch.






At dusk he flies at high speed sweeping insects into his wide, short beak that is surrounded by bristles that serve as sensory organs and as a catching basket.











Pack Rats rustle around their piled-up middens, Cactus Mice Peromyscus eremicus (picture) hide in the shadows, and we see Pocket Mice hopping around. These miniature versions of the Kangaroo-rat are too shy and fast for my camera, but I'll keep trying.












Another shy creature is the female Tarantula Aphonopelma sp. that excavated her burrow in our drive way. She opens the silk cover of the entrance every night to come out to hunt, but she stays close enough to her hole to slip back in as soon as my flashlight beam hits her.

The males are much less camera shy, and anyway, they don't have holes to hide in when they are wandering about hunting and looking for females.


Black Widows Latrodectus hesperus are hanging quite unafraid in their webs, presenting the red hour-glass of their under-bellies as a warning. Who would bother them? A bite can be devastating. But you won't find them during the day.

Lightning quick Sunspiders, also called Windscorpions, Solifugae rush by. Having no poison, they rely on the strength of their formidable mandibles to overpower their prey.



A female Scorpion is carrying her offspring on her back. Scorpions, like many other insectivores, are attracted to the bounty on my black-lighting sheet.

A real nuisance for the insect collector are the big Sonoran Desert Toads Bufo alvarius. They have learned to come to my black light and probably get more beetles than I. We've reached an uneasy coexistance with these amphibians that seem to emerge earlier every summer. Even our dog Cody has learned from his first nearly tragic encounter that sent him to the vet with a racing heartbeat and partial paralysis. For several years after that he was a bufotenin licking junkie: We could always tell from his swagger and fluffed-up fur when he had found the first toad of the season and was high again. But by now he leaves them alone, even when they use his water dish as a swimming pool. None of the other dogs ever bothered the toads.


As every bird bath has its toads, every porch light has its Mediterranean House Gecko Hemidactylus turcitus. This introduced species spends its life in the vertical plane of walls. Special toe pads give the Gecko a secure hold that allows him to shoot forward and snap up any moth that is drawn to the light.
I hope they also get some of the Kissing Bugs Triatoma rubida. These Reduviids grow up in Pack rat nests, but at night the adults hang around lights and are always ready for a meal of blood from our sleeping dogs.


Another Gecko hunts on the ground. The native Western Banded Gecko Coleonyx variegatus bogerti lacks the toe pads of its European cousin. His very thin, soft skin may make him more dependent on cooler, moister hide-outs. During the day I find this species under flower pots and bird baths in shady places.


With a dry rustling noise, huge Long-horned Beetles land close to lights: Palo Verde Root Borers Dreobrachus hovorei. At up to 4 inches, they are the longest, if not the heaviest Arizona Beetles.


I am expecting to find their relatives, the long-jawed Nothopleurus lobigenis any day now, too. I remember from last year that they seem to take their clue from the first actual downpour.


Sadly, this summer we are missing our Western Screech Owls Megascops kennicottii. Since we bought our house in the Tucson Mountains in 2002 we heard their dropped-ping-pong-ball call during summer nights and every year watched about four young ones emerge from a cavity in an old Ironwood tree. Last year's terrible drought seems to have been too much for them.


When the dogs start barking at night, we listen whether they are joining the choir of the coyotes, race around and bark angrily at Javelinas, or give the stationary, rhythmic bark that we have learned to associate with rattlers Crotalus atrox . These snakes become night active when the temperatures force them into shelter during the day.